Alphena sat upright. She had been curled on the floor of the shaman's kiva; the promise of dawn brightened through the reeds of the mat over the entrance. Uktena was looking down at her, his pipe in his hands.
She got to her feet. "It was nothing that matters, Uktena," she said. She looked at the axe in her right hand, then hefted it. "Is it time to go?"
"Yes, child," Uktena said with a faint smile. "It is time."
He paused to light the herbs in his pipe bowl with a pinch of punk which he kept smoldering in a hollow gourd.
"And perhaps it is the last time," Uktena said.
David Drake
Out of the Waters-ARC
CHAPTER 16
"I was talking with my friend Marcus Priscus last night, Varus," Saxa said.
Even half-dazed by the dream of his conversation with the corpse, Varus felt his lips lift in a tiny smile. His father was so proud to be able to claim Priscus as a friend.
A man as wealthy as Saxa could easily have scraped acquaintance with military, political, or social leaders. What he had wanted, however, was to join those whom he regarded as truly wise, the only group which could not be bought with money. The disasters threatening his family and the world had at least allowed Saxa to achieve his greatest ambition.
"He pointed out that Hedia's disappearance," Saxa said, "and that of Master Pandareus as well, of course, weren't the start of this business. It started with the vision of the monster that we saw in the theater."
He cleared his throat and added in a small voice, "I talked to Meoetes, you see. The climax of the mime wasn't his doing after all. It was a real vision that surprised him as much it did the rest of us. In fact-"
Saxa smiled ruefully.
"-it surprised him more than it did me, because I thought it was a trick that I was watching."
Varus looked at the splinter of bone. It fitted his hand like a leatherworker's awl. He thought, I can't have been dreaming. But what does it mean?
Aloud he said, "I don't know the answer any better than you, father. There's nothing in the books I've read-and Lord Priscus would know better than I anyway. Though-"
As he spoke, an answer presented itself.
"-there is a person I could ask. I'm not sure she would tell me, though."
Or even that she exists outside my own imagination-since she claims she doesn't.
As suddenly as the thought, Varus felt himself dropping out of the present, onto a fog-ridden hillside. Instead of the familiar track which would him to the Sibyl's eyrie, this was bare black rock. The Sibyl waited for him at the foot of the slope.
"Sibyl?" he said. "Why are you here?"
"You have need of me, Lord Wizard," she said. Her smile was unreadable, another seam in the wrinkles that covered her aged face. "Where else should I be, since I am wholly a part of you?"
"Mistress, tell me what I should do," Varus said. He didn't care what meaning she gave to the question. He needed help in so many fashions that any answer would be welcome.
"Come with me and meet your enemy, your lordship," the Sibyl said, taking him by the hand. She started up the slope. Ancient though she seemed, her pace was both quick and steady.
She doesn't have a body, of course. And neither do I in this place. I don't think that I have a body in this place.
Varus didn't ask further questions: he would have his answer when the Sibyl chose to volunteer it or he had the wit to determine it for himself. If she is really part of me, I'm a difficult person to get information out of.
They reached the top of the hill. In front of them stretched a bleak moor. The sparse grass or sedge-he couldn't be sure-was gray with hoarfrost; the sky was gray as well. The sun, huge but orange, hung in mid sky; its light did nothing to temper the bitter wind.
A spire of black crystal stood on the moor half a mile away. From horizon to horizon, it was the only object which was taller than the occasional black bush which might have risen to Varus' knee.
"Is that Procron's keep, mistress?" he said. "Or is there another Minos in this place?"
"This is where Procron hides," the Sibyl said. She continued to walk forward; Varus kept pace. "This is your enemy, Lord Wizard."
His feet crunched on the sere vegetation. Something small-perhaps a rabbit, though it didn't move like one-scurried ahead of them; Varus thought he heard it squeal. The air was thin, and it didn't seem to fill his lungs.
"Why did-" Varus began. He caught himself, grinning with what he thought was a pardonable degree of self-satisfaction.
"Sibyl…," he said, a philosopher and a lawyer now instead of a youth too frightened to use his education. "Did Procron abduct my mother? Because I know that the Sages took Corylus and Master Pandareus. I was there when it happened."
The old woman glanced toward him. He thought she was smiling again, but he couldn't be sure.
"Procron did not take Hedia," she said, "but those who took her are for others. Your duty is to deal with Procron, for no one else can."
The Sibyl made a chuffing sound that Varus thought was a laugh. "And even you may be unable to stand against Procron, Lord Wizard; though your world will end if you fail."
Varus sniffed; for a moment he was solely a son of Carce. "My world will certainly end if I fail," he said in a haughty tone, "for I will have died in the attempt. Of course."
They had come within a furlong of the crystal fortress, the length of a foot race. The high-arched door at ground level remained sealed, but the top of the spire split open. The angled sides moved soundlessly, catching sunlight and scattering it across the bleak landscape in a shower of orange droplets.
A figure in fiery armor slid from the fortress, standing on the air. He did not wear a helmet. In place of his head was a skull carved from diamond.
"Who are you who dares come to me?" the figure said. "I am Procron, Lord of the Atlantis! Submit or I will crush you as I crush all my enemies!"
"I saw you run from your fellow Minoi, magician!" Varus said. The words leaped to his tongue without his conscious volition. "And you must have run again, or I wouldn't find you here. Bow to Carce or take the consequences, barbarian!"
Procron raised a hand, but it was from his glittering skull that purple fire leapt at Varus and the Sibyl. The ground in a circle about them flashed into steam and bitter smoke.
Varus started back, but the bolt had halted at arm's length from him and splashed in all directions. The Sibyl stood, smiling faintly. The sparse vegetation could not sustain the fire.
Am I physically here in this cold wasteland?
Embarrassed to have recoiled from the purple fire, Varus strode forward. He didn't know why it hadn't incinerated him, and he certainly didn't know whether he'd be as lucky the next time. Besides which, the Atlantean wizard was a hundred feet in the air; unless Varus had developed an unexpected ability to fly, he couldn't get at his enemy even if Procron failed to blast him to ash in the next instant.
No matter. I am a citizen of Carce. If I don't know what to do in a crisis, I will go forward.
The flame-scoured moorland was hot beneath his feet. He was wearing silk slippers, suitable for a gentleman doing research in his family library. He grinned wryly. Blistered feet were the least of his worries.
Procron's diamond jaws opened as if to shout, but no sound came out. He spread his hands. Light the color of orichalc danced from his gauntlets. It formed walls in the air, tumbling and joining until they locked suddenly into a faceted sphere. It surrounded Varus and the Sibyl, slanting into the hard soil beneath their feet.
"Did you think you were safe because you could block my spells?" Procron said. "Stay here and starve! You cannot return to the world from which you came. I will watch you die and rot and crumble to dust-and even the dust will remain, for all eternity!"